Life After Target: Leaving The Red Party

Last week, I got another job. It's at Dick's Sporting Goods and I'm very excited.

However. Last week was not merely the week I got a job. It was the week I overcame a deeply personal hang-up I've had since January. Many of you know how extremely scarring my experience working at the Asheville Target was, and that I haven't been in that store since. Until. Last Thursday.

Upon getting hired at DSG, I felt, well... invincible. *tear slides down cheek* But in my victorious rejoicing I knew that there something I had to do.

And that was spend some money. At Target. THAT Target. THAT TARGET WHERE I GOT *sigh* FIRED.

Awkwardly, the girl who fired me was the one at the customer service desk. She was less than friendly, and when she asked me (coldly) where I was working now, I said, "oh my WORD, actually at Dick's down the road!" with such confidence! *thumbs up* She asked me why I was buying work-out leggings from Target if I worked at a sporting goods store. I said, "because I like these ones," and grabbed my own receipt off the machine. I made a run for it, but stopped and looked back at her sad, sullen, bitter face at that register, and felt--

Could it be? PITY?! There you are, you sad, sad little woman. Still here at Target, while I've obviously moved on into bigger, better arenas. Sure, Dick's starting position pays less than Target's. Sure, I don't know how to sell fire arms and they kind of freak me out. Sure, my interview consisted of questions centered around KAYAKING, something I've done a grand total of three times in my life, and REALLY faked my expertise on. It may be that my entire basis for hiring is made of lies.

But. Poor Girl-Who-Fired-Me. As I left Target, in a slow motion victory walk, I looked back and saw her eyes, so darkly rimmed with eyeliner that it was impossible to see even a quiver of emotion in those dense orbs... It may be too late for her. But it's not too late for some of us.

If you too have been a victim of the atrocities of Target, I want you to know:

There is hope. You can move on to have a retail job that DOESN'T make you want to jump off the loading dock. There are places out there that offer more than a measly 10 percent discount. There will be managers who are able to listen to you talk without making a puking face at you.

Now-- moving on isn't going to be easy. There IS a high likelihood that visiting your personal Target will be traumatic, but it can be done. I want you, right now, to go to your closet. Find those putrid red shirts that you folded in a heap on a shelf after your job ended. Pick one up. Look at that bright, angry crimson. Remember the bloodshot eyes from your overnight shifts. The color of gala apples that were the cheapest thing you could buy on your lunch breaks. The blood that you wished you could shed every time someone said "but the sign said this was $12 not $42!" or maybe even your own blood, depending on how severe your receipt paper-cuts got.

Look at the red and remember all the horror it symbolizes... and then fold them and put them away and try to get over it as best you can. That's what I'm doing...